The UCLA Medical Center employee who allegedly pried into the private medical records of the governor's wife and 60 others in a burgeoning scandal was a low-ranking administrative specialist who told The Times on Tuesday that "it was just me being nosy."
"Clearly I made a mistake; let's put it like that," Lawanda J. Jackson, 49, said when asked in a telephone interview why she improperly looked at the records of so many patients, including California First Lady Maria Shriver and actress Farrah Fawcett.
"I didn't leak anything or anything like that," said Jackson, who had worked at the hospital since she was 16. "It wasn't for money or anything. It was just looking."
UCLA took steps last May to fire Jackson after determining that she had inappropriately accessed dozens of electronic medical records, UCLA officials say. But the employee resigned in July before she could be fired, spokeswoman Roxanne Moster said. (Previously, the hospital told The Times that it had fired Jackson.)
Neither UCLA nor state health officials have confirmed Jackson's identity, but The Times was able to verify it.
The breaches have triggered several state investigations and created a major embarrassment for UCLA. The hospital could face serious sanctions from the California Department of Public Health, and Jackson could face criminal charges for allegedly violating a federal privacy law.
Although such charges are uncommon, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have launched a preliminary inquiry into the matter, a source in the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.
"We're certainly interested and we're looking into it," said the source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Among the 61 patients whose records Jackson allegedly viewed in 2006 and 2007 were 33 celebrities, politicians and other well-known people, state officials have said.
UCLA's ability to keep patients' information private has been at issue since The Times reported last month that the university was trying to fire 13 workers and was disciplining 12 others for peeking into the records of pop star Britney Spears, who was hospitalized in its neuropsychiatric unit in January.
Lawyers for Fawcett contend that UCLA employees might have leaked or sold information on the recurrence of the actress' cancer last May to the tabloids, including the National Enquirer. The Enquirer published several sensational stories soon after her visits to the medical center, the lawyers said, including a piece titled "Farrah's Cancer Is Back!" before Fawcett was able to tell her son about it.
